 I attended an event at Twickenham at which the great man spoke at length about his time as England coach, his successes and his failures, his own approach to the game that is International rugby and how he took England from the 6th ranked team in the world when he took over to World Champions, and some might argue, back again...
He also elaborated on his hopes and plans for the Lions and his plans for the future. Following his presentation I had the opportunity to grab the above photo and have a chat with him. He was very candid in his presentation and discussion and despite a request from Clive that everything discussed remained in confidence, I feel that at this point, there are no confidences to break. What follows is what I discovered:
Firstly, I must say that Sir Clive is one of the most engaging speakers I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching and talking too. He was funny, humble, gave credit to the RFU and the players, took the piss out of himself and suggested that much of his rancour at recent RFU decisions had been overblown in the press. Basically, I found him to be a real gentleman with a love of the game, and a love of winning. He is a proud Englishman and is absolutely 100% committed to the Lions. When heard in full, the opinions that have been butchered by the press seem not only more reasonable, but eminently applaudable.
The subject of Clive’s presentation was achieving and maintaining success, or as he put it, winning (convenient tie in with his book title…). When he took on the England role, he believed that there were two key things required in order to turn the England rugby team into the best team in the world, which they undoubtedly had the resources and the players to become. The first was a winning mindset, the second a winning organisation. The first may sound easy to achieve for you Kiwis but you must remember that we had an almost ‘little brotherly awe’ of what the Southern Hemisphere were capable of when it came to rugby. Clive was convinced that we had to stop copying the All Blacks and the Springboks and the Wallabies, and that we should begin to set the trends for others to follow.
Critical Non Essentials:
In order to begin to set trends, he believed that lateral and vertical thinking in reassessing everything we did, in an attempt to establish if it was necessary and if there was a better way of doing it. One of my favourite stories was his desire to change the dressing room at Twickenham into the best changing room in world rugby, the RFU wouldn’t give him any money to do it, so Austin Healey suggested calling Changing Rooms, which he did, and they created a great place to be and arguably the best changing room in world rugby.
He believes that these type of ‘Critical Non Essentials’ began to make the team believe they were the best prepared side in the world, the dressing room is just one example of this policy in action. Other little things were the changing of shirts at half time following some stats that England performed far better in the first ten minutes of a game than the ten minutes after half time, so they attempted to recreate the situation, changing shirts, running out in the same order etc were all put into place – results were immediate, and despite Mickey taking from the rugby community, within 6 months the ABs and the Wallabies among others, had copied us. For the first time in the history of the game, England had done something first and been copied, however small and incidental. This was merely the beginning, Clive reeled off numerous things that have changed the way we approach the game which have been copied by other teams. Everything we did that was new and innovative helped create a sense of being better prepared than any other team in the players mind.
Prozone:
He also talked us through and demonstrated Prozone, interestingly, throughout his presentation he constantly alluded to and praised the support that the England rugby sponsors and partners had given the England team and it seems he has used them to their fullest capacity. Prozone was installed at Twickenham 2 years before the world cup, 18 cameras around the roof track player movements, the distances they run, their work rates, positioning etc. This revolutionised the coaching approach, and also prevented players bullshitting (to use his words!) about how hard they were working and where they were on the pitch during certain incidents etc – apparently it wasn’t very popular with the players at first! The interesting thing about Prozone was the way Clive released it to the media – you may remember it. He had done a deal with Prozone that the fact England had it would be kept a secret from the rest of the rugby world until 1 yr before the world cup, at which point it would be announced. They also agreed that Prozone would not install the system for any other international team until the world cup was finished. The way Clive released to the media the presence of Prozone was genius, he called a press conference as agreed with Prozone, then proceeded to highlight to the gathered journalists the ‘dummy running’ evidence against the ABs etc. The point of this was to get the Prozone message around the world as quickly as possible. It was also to show off the new toy to the other rugby nations who didn’t have it. In the two years leading up to the World Cup, England hosted every single one of the major rugby nations in order to use the Prozone technology to assess their patterns of play etc.
Englands War Chest
Clive realised that England were creating the impression to the opposition that England had a huge war chest of money and resources and as a result an unfair advantage over the opposition. Indeed Eddie Jones actually accused England of cheating last year because of all our supposed enormous resource advantage and it has been something constantly bitched about on here. In truth, England does not have a huge war chest of money set aside for the national team, much of what Clive has achieved has been through clever business practice, doing up the changing rooms using ‘Changing Rooms’, gaining sponsorship etc to take additional coaches and lawyers to the world cup when the RFU refused to pay etc (this was mentioned in his piece in the Sunday Times last weekend) etc. In creating this impression, they were gaining a psychological advantage over the opposition and creating a feeling of superiority within the England players which had simply never existed before.
Teamship:
I have listened to people on this site criticize Woodward and question his true motivation for taking the Lions down to NZ and whilst I myself have doubted him, I am now convinced that they are mistaken in their impression of him as being purely motivated by his own ego, he wants the Lions to win more than anything else. To hear him speak of his players you’d be surprised at the reverence verging on awe with which he speaks of the likes of Johnson, Wilkinson, Back, Dallaglio etc. He saw his role as a combination of making sure that the right people were in the room (no energy sappers to coin his phrase) and then making sure he gave them everything required to make them the best they could be, to provide a ‘no excuses’ environment if you will. He entirely credits the team and his coaches for the World Cup win. He gives Johnson untold amounts of credit for his open minded approach the England leadership role, to always be prepared to try something and if it didn’t work, to throw it out.
One of his buzz words, and he does like them, is ‘teamship’. An approach that effectively meant when a policy decision about the way the team were to be run needed to be made (eg punctuality) then the players would discuss it without him there, then a senior player would present the teams decision on the matter to him only when the players were unanimous. He would then agree or not, if not, they would have to discuss the issue again. One of the things to come out of this policy was the writing of books etc about the team, the England team and management eventually agreed that they would never write a book or newspaper which would upset or offend anyone in the England set up even after their rugby career had ended. Therefore any of the books you read by ex players or by Clive himself will never slate people he coached or played with during the England years. This trust they considered crucial, the only person ever to break this policy was Richard Cockerill, needless to say, he has never set foot in an England training session or England team again.
Clive firmly believes that the 01 Lions should have won the series in Australia. The flaws he pinpointed lay within the fact that the team and management were so keen to train on the pitch that they did not bother to have the discussions pre tour about the way the players would behave and what they would expect from each other and the management, (including a media policy!). This team building and trust exercise was something that was critical to the 97 Lions and he believes was critical to the England team pre World Cup.
Clive’s view of the England teams recent performances and the future:
Clive was happy to talk about what has happened this year, his overriding feeling was that we went into the World Cup as the best prepared team in the world, and went into the 6N as the worst. No training days before hand left us on the back foot from the start. He is also of the opinion that the players were shattered, a theory born out by the Prozone stats. He compared the prozone stats of players work rates between the game vs France last September at Twickenham and the game vs Ireland in the 6N this year. Work rates were down over 25% in the Ireland game, a huge amount when you consider that the France game was only a friendly. He puts a lot of that down to fatigue, both mental and physical.
He is gutted that people like Dayglo are being forced into retirement by the ridiculous NH season and curses himself for taking him on tour in the summer and not giving him a rest. He is convinced that Dayglo has retired 2 yrs early. He blames himself for letting Back go to early as well.
The Lions:
Clive is hugely committed to the Lions, and is convinced that as long as the players are fresh enough, that we can turn the Kiwis over. He is keen to be a part of it and to lead the tour and is determined above all else for the Lions to win. His willingness to listen to other coaches, take on board new ideas and to trust people to do their jobs will be a major strength on this Lions tour. I firmly believe that he is the best man to take this team on tour, and if he can put the right people in the room whose sole motivation is the success of the Lions then I believe we can be successful.
Jamie Noon:
As many who post on this site will know, I am a huge fan of Jamie Noon and have long been whining on about how he as the most creative centre in England and should be in the England team. I always swore if I ever met the England coach that I’d ask him why he wasn’t in the team and whether he would consider picking him in future as a favour to me. Well, finally I had my chance to ask Clive and what does he do? Resigns from the England job three days before, so instead I asked Clive to take Jamie on the Lions tour, he is my prediction for the bolter this season and I think he and Brian O’Driscoll would make an awesome centre partnership. Clive looked a bit puzzled, as though he couldn’t remember who Jamie Noon was (which might explain why he hasn’t been picking him for the last two years), but eventually nodded his head thoughtfully and said he’d see what he could do….watch this space! |
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